The body of Tara Whelan was returned from Turkey last night with her parents already expressing public forgiveness for the bombers who killed her.
The 17-year-old's remains were flown into Cork airport just before 8pm, where they were awaited by her family and a parish curate.
Earlier, in a statement released through the parish priest, Tony and Frances Whelan forgave the killers and pleaded with them to give up "the way of the bomb". Father Michael O'Byrne said they also urged those is positions of power to do everything they could to bring the perpetrators to the "peace table".
In the parish church at Ballyduff-Kilmeaden, friends and neighbours responded to Father O'Byrne's call to channel their grief into last night's weekly "Holy Hour". Mourners filled the small church for silent reflection, interspersed with decades of the rosary and readings from scripture.
Addressing the congregation afterwards, the parish priest urged them to continue praying for the family, "because as you know yourselves, their pain and bereavement will not go away tomorrow, or the day after that, or next week".
The dead girl's remains were brought to Cork University Hospital, where a postmortem will be performed today before the body is released for burial. Father O'Byrne told mourners the authorities' insistence on a postmortem had cast doubt on the original plans for a funeral tomorrow. "It also makes the ordeal longer for the family, so again they need your prayers."
The GAA flags of Ballyduff and Waterford flew at half-mast beside the Tricolour opposite the church, in honour of the family's strong hurling tradition. Flags were lowered too at the Glanbia food plant in Kilmeaden, close to the Whelan family home and The Sweep pub where Tara worked.
Earlier yesterday, her school had opened so that friends could meet and help each other to come to terms with the tragedy.
Speaking outside the church after last night's service, Father O'Byrne said it was the community's third untimely funeral in a week, after the death of a baby and of a young man in a car accident. The Whelans had helped with the arrangements for the latter funeral last Friday, 24 hours before their own daughter was killed. The attendance at the Holy Hour was "twice as many as we see for Sunday Mass", the priest added. "But this place is just soaked in grief at the moment."
Meanwhile, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, is to raise security concerns for Irish tourists in Turkey today when he meets the Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, in Ankara. Mr Ahern was scheduled to visit Turkey as part of a four-country tour of the eastern Mediterranean in his role as UN special envoy for bilateral meetings on UN reform. He will not be visiting Kusadasi.
Turkish police are continuing to investigate the bombing.
Kurdish separatist group, the PKK, is being held responsible for the atrocity.